Slimy tactics won’t earn Apple any more Safari users

Safari Install Prompt in Apple Software Update Here’s the story I keep expecting to go away, but instead it keeps growing bigger and more controversial by the minute.

Apple has recently begun to use and/or abuse their extraordinary share of the media player market held by iTunes as a jumping off point for spreading the uptake their Safari browser. This has many PC users seriously miffed, and appears to have fanned the flames of the long-standing operating system war between Mac-heads and PC-users, which has been burning since the 1980s.

When installing iTunes, users are also required to install the Apple Software Update tool, which regularly checks for new versions of the software. When a new version becomes available, users are prompted to download and install it.

Being prompted for software updates is nothing new. What is stirring the controversy is Apple’s increasing tendency to use this update to try and piggy-back other applications.

This began with QuickTime, which is so closely integrated with iTunes you cannot install iTunes by itself anymore. Apple has now expanded this tactic to include prompts to install Safari as well.

The symptom in question appears when you have iTunes but not Safari installed on your PC. When the update appears, users now see the inclusion of Safari, with the install option selected by default.

While not nearly as bundled as QuickTime, the fact users are now being prompted to install unwanted or unrequested software is getting people’s backs up. You need only look to the Digg thread on “Apple pushing Safari downloads on Windows users” for examples of the anathema this move is being met with.

More recently though, Mozilla CEO, John Lilly weighed in:

“…by and large, all software makers are trying to get users to trust us on updates, and so the likely behavior here is for users to just click “Install 2 items,” which means that they’ve now installed a completely new piece of software, quite possibly completely unintentionally. Apple has made it incredibly easy — the default, even — for users to install ride along software that they didn’t ask for, and maybe didn’t want. This is wrong, and borders on malware distribution practices.”

I for one find this irritating, but not nearly the personal afront that some people are making it out to be. As Tom Kranit from CNet discussed yesterday (“Think before you install“), it’s important to pay attention to what you’re doing when you click OK when prompted to install something:

“Had Apple bundled Safari with iTunes, the way they bundle Quicktime, I can see where Windows users would have more of a complaint. Being forced to install something you don’t want just to get updates for something you do want is not cool. You can download standalone versions of QuickTime or iTunes on Apple’s site, but sometimes they appear bundled in Software Update and people don’t realize they have other options.

But that’s not what’s happening with Safari. If you don’t want Safari, don’t click “install.”

It seems that at some point people became conditioned to downloading anything that shows up from an official source, like Microsoft, Apple, AOL, Yahoo, or whoever. Remember, it’s your PC; spend your installation capital wisely.”

I don’t think this move is going to do much to increase Safari’s market share. PC users by and large seem to take their browsers in one of two flavours: Internet Explorer, or something that isn’t Internet Explorer.

In the case of the latter, this title is well and truly held by Firefox; and as far as I’m concerned, Safari just can’t compete with Firefox. Sure it’s fast, but so is the Firefox 3 Beta 4 version, which I’m using currently. With Safari you’ve got zippo on the customisation options; with Firefox, you’ve got a massive library of tools and add-ons for building your browser experience exactly the way you want it.

So I don’t see Apple gaining very much by this move, except criticism that it’s becoming another Microsoft. These slimy install tactics have just given me another reason to ignore Safari, not embrace it.

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